Trouble remembering your password? There's an app for that

The app also doesn't work in snow, where walking style is necessarily different.

One of the major problems with iPhones is remembering the lock code. Was it a swoosh or a sweep? Up and down or across. Several apps have been proposed to get around the problem, but none of them are satisfactory. Now, Quipper Apps have launched Gaiter, the password protection system to rule them all.

"I've been using the lock pad for years," said App World! editor Mac Buck. "So long in fact, that I've worn a groove on the Retina display."

Buck has tried the other apps to replace the lock pad. "I tried fingerprint recognition for a while," he said. "I thought that was pretty cool, until my daughter got into my phone by putting sticky tape over the spot where I press. Far too easy to break into. Then I tried facial recognition, but my ex-wife got some dirt on me by showing the phone a photo. Duh!"

In desperation, Buck even tried voice recognition. "This was the worst of the lot," he said. "I was locked out of my phone for three weeks. Three weeks of hell, I can tell you. I'd been a little bit stressed when I recorded the phone, and couldn't quite replicate the squeaky voice I'd used when I locked the phone down. Although after three weeks without an iPhone, I found replicating it pretty easy."

The new app is far simpler to use.

"It's pretty good," said Buck. "It uses the accelerometer to monitor the owner's walking style. This can't be faked by an hysterical ex-wife. It can't be stolen, and it's completely unique."

The phone is simply carried in its usual place, and it learns the owner's walking style, using check ins with Four Square to make allowances for coming out of a pub.

"Once it's learned the gait," said Buck. "It will only work when it is being carried by the person who owns it."

There is one downside to the app. "I have to walk around my chair fifteen times before I can use my phone now," said Buck. "Which isn't all bad. I've lost two stone."

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